The present invention relates to a method and a system for detecting collision and for constructing and visualizing geometrical information about contact between, and more generally proximity of, a finite number of numerically-simulated objects, i.e. virtual objects.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,862,026 (document [9]) has already proposed a method of detecting collision between virtual objects based on the construction of boxes containing the objects to be considered as a function of the required movement. That prior art method verifies whether boxes containing the two objects are superposed, and where appropriate, it divides each box into two smaller boxes. Optimization is effected by using boxes having axes that are aligned with the axes of one of the objects. That method does not make use of the distance between objects.
Moreover, a method is known from reference document [1] for determining minimum local distances between three-dimensional polyhedral objects represented by triangulation of their boundaries in three dimensions, but that method is explained in relation to certain particular applications and involves relatively lengthy calculations that are not adapted to the situation of real-time simulation.